


Building A White Picket Fence

by uffda



Series: The White Picket Fence Life [1]
Category: Floating (1997)
Genre: Adoption, Doug lives, Established Relationship, Fluff, For a Friend, Future Fic, Gay Male Character, Gay Parents, Homophobia, Infertility, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), My First AO3 Post, My First Work in This Fandom, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Beta Read, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Some angst, Surrogacy, These tags sound darker than it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 05:34:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13697907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uffda/pseuds/uffda
Summary: Van will never forget the day he almost lost Doug. Had he really lost him, they could’ve never built a life together—where would Van even be? Would he be a dad? Would he even know what it feels like to love someone as much as he loves his family? It is a strange thought, after all that they’ve built together now. He had only known Doug for a summer when that happened, and now they’ve been together for years. This is some of the story of those years.





	Building A White Picket Fence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Doug to my Van](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Doug+to+my+Van).



> A/N: Hi, I’m Allie. I write fanfiction often, but I’ve never posted any of it. This is the first thing I’m sharing. This is part of a series that I’m writing for my friend. We both love Floating so much, and there isn’t much fanfiction to read that we’ve found, so I’ve been writing some for us! This could be A/U to some people because the ending of Floating [SPOILER ALERT] heavily implies that, but my friend and I just loved Van and Doug too much that we thought, ‘what if?’ This isn’t really sexual slash, but it explores their future together in other queer ways, like how they build a family together. There’s more mentions of sex than there is explicit sex. This is much more about building their relationship over time. Throughout the different, err.. vignettes? Chapters? So far, there are sex scenes, but they’re not very sexy! Haha. Not to say I won’t write one later, but I was just interested more in exploring their relationship in a different way. Not to say there won’t ever be a really hot slash scene in the future, but I haven’t written one yet.
> 
> I’m gonna throw it all in a series of related oneshots titled “The White Picket Fence Life.”

Van will never forget the day he almost lost Doug. He thinks about it often, but the thought can rarely leave him be in moments like this. They're signing the last of many papers, making Riley and Ryland their own. Van thinks their not-so-little family may finally be complete. He rests his hand in the small of Doug's back--a gesture they both know the deeper meaning of, and Doug gives him a gentle smile before returning to the conversation with the social worker that Van felt so distant from as his mind wandered the years to this day. 

Doug is like sunshine with their children--a ray of warmth that pierces skin and emotions without pain and makes the body function just a little more perfectly through some unidentifiable comfort. Neither one of them knows where it came from, but Van had never questioned its presence. Doug did, right before Jeoff made them parents. 

Doug had never wanted anything more than he had wanted their first son, and Van could only think of three things he had wanted as much as Jeoff. Today, he was finally getting two of them. It had been much harder for them to have Jeoff though, and Van knows that their oldest son helped lead them to this moment in time. Van can't really remember all the years, but he does remember time.

Very shortly after Van graduated college, his Douglas started bringing him very purposeful presents. He didn't get it for a few days, when he saw the matching coffee cups by his secondary source of comfort in the morning. The coffee machine seemed content enough with the new mugs, so Van hadn't paid much attention to them. He figured Doug had changed them out because of the never-ending coffee stain in Van's, to be honest. Or maybe Doug had dropped his own at some point, and snuck in these replacements quick and easy. The former coffee mug set had consisted of their favorite hockey teams, and maybe the older man got tired of waking up to a difference of opinion. Now, the mugs matched more. Van by-passed what they said and merely picked up the one that had been where his Detroit Redwings mug had formerly sat. 

Three days later, he bothered to look at the art: "World's Okayest Dad" was written across the front. He looked at Douglas's: "World's Greatest Dad." Hm. At that time, he'd decided he best not ask, lest opening a can of worms he wasn't ready for...

A month after the change of kitchen counter scenery, Doug asked him to go shopping with him--promising they could go look at graphic t-shirts at some point in the day, as long as Van tagged along and made sure he didn't buy something that wasn't flattering. Van had started to argue that seeing the clothes before they were bought left date night unsurprising, but Doug knew him too well for that. "Please, you're more interested in when I'm not wearing clothes, Van, now let's go." Doug grabbed the other man's jacket and Van rolled his eyes. To be fair, he had set himself up for that one, and Van wondered if it held weight for later in the day--it did. 

The shopping trip led them through a number of itchy-clothes shops and Van feigned a sneeze in the fourth one. Doug wasn't amused, so Van laughed loudly at his own joke, rested his hand on Doug's back, kissed his forehead and apologized. 

The fifth store they entered was different, however. Itchy polos wouldn't be among the racks of soft cotton and plush pastels of a baby clothing store. "Whose having a baby?," Van asked. "No one," Doug said at first, as he flipped through tiny onesies in the newborn area. He quickly added, "I figured we could find something for Sarah and Dakota." Van didn't believe this was for his nephew though, because the six month old would have no need for the newborn white dress with little pink flowers embroidered at the top that his husband was currently fixated on. "Isn't it crazy that people are this small?," he asked, and Van had never really thought about it before, to be honest. Van rested his hand at Douglas's back for a moment as he studied his husband's words. 

A month prior, he finally "held" Dakota for the first time. About two feet from his body. And the smell had made him want to hold him farther away, but Van's arms were shorter than that, and the baby was awkwardly heavy and squirmy--like a fish in a net that's just too small and has a tiny rip on one side, that you're awkwardly carrying back to the lake to free because you just don't want to deal with it--it had been exactly like that. So, really, Van had had the opposite thought. Dakota was big. And heavy. And smelly. And squirmy. 

Van wandered to the 6-9 month clothes, prepared to confirm his theory to his husband, but he found similarly tiny clothing. Much larger than the dress Doug showed him, but still so tiny. He started picking up his own pieces, confused by their proportions. He thought about everything a person carried around in their bodies--it was so much stuff, and all that stuff once fit in these tiny bodysuits. He actually laughed, and Doug knew he had won, but Van wouldn't admit it for a few months. However, by October, Van--having hated Dakota's pumpkin suit for Halloween--first admitted that he wanted a baby Batman... 

Van wouldn't admit the next year had hurt him though. He could never let Doug know that because Doug hurt so much more. In November, they made the first of many appointments, and Van saw the sunshine for the first time. He was married to the World's Greatest Dad, but the world just hadn't caught up yet. It wouldn't for a while. By March, Doug got the toughest news, but the sunshine wasn't gone. He knew he was the issue right now. He changed everything for the next several months. He wouldn't use plastic, made Van smoke far away from him, changed their coffee brand, diet and bedsheets, ate tons of vegetables, popped the $1500 a month daily cocktail of "miracle" drugs, and awkwardly scheduled their sex life to maximize his sperm count. 

Van wanted nothing more than to help, but he felt helpless. First, he felt like this idea had caused much more harm than good. His baby Batman wasn't worth all the negative results and his husband's feeling of brokenness. His baby Batman wasn't worth the baby showers for their friends, but none for his husband. His baby Batman wasn't worth Doug's dad telling them that God would never give them a baby because it wouldn't have a mother, or Van's dad accidentally phrasing Van's conception in just the right way to wound Doug's pride. Van glared daggers at his dad when he said, "I didn't know there were so many ways to increase the chance--we had been trying to prevent it with you, but it just didn't work, not that I'm regretful or anything." With every hit, Van put his hand in the small of Doug's back. 

Doug saw Van's pain once--on October 2nd. Van thought he wasn't home though. As agreed, Van answered the phone when the doctor called, and Doug would wait for him to come to him with news in the best way possible, but Doug felt like October was magical. October was when Van said yes. October had to be the month that it happened, but it wasn't. 

Doug watched as Van answered the phone for the thousandth time. They had been expecting the call for three hours. Van was holding the little Batman onesie when the phone rang. He sat it down, took a deep breath, and answered the phone. He was fidgeting with the soft fabric when he felt his heart sink in his chest. He grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, and mechanically wrote down the new dates. October 6th, October 8th, October 20th, and October 27th. He sounded so professional on the phone, but Doug knew he was crying, even though he wasn't facing him. There was something about the way he was sitting. 

Van's body curled and held tension awkwardly when he cried. You couldn't hear it, but you could see it. Like a rock that wouldn't crumble, but might combust. Van's voice never cracked, but as soon as the phone was hung up, Doug sat beside him and lifted his head. He said nothing and just wiped the tears away. Doug wanted to break, but it was Van's turn. He knew it was over now. Van couldn't keep doing it, and Doug didn't think he could either. 

When the crying turned to exhaustion, Doug's hands moved from Van's wet cheeks to his tousled hair, and then the soft touches turned to grips, and then they broke the schedule together and burned the plans and stepped out of the haze. 

Van didn't leave for his post-sex cigarette, and they both knew they were done. They had the same fleeting thought of wanting to create organically, and Van wondered why the universe wouldn't let them. Doug wondered if his father was right. His hand shaked as he reached for Van's smoke, and he breathed the poison in deep, tired of mechanical production and science. 

"Your turn, babe," he sighed. Van moved closer and rested his forehead on Doug's shoulder, breathing in a weird mix of sex, cigarettes, and Doug. He put his hand on the small of Doug's back. Doug felt like it was a ritual now, but he couldn't place why. 

The older man thought about the feeling--a small tingling in his back as his brain sent signals saying Van was touching him. He realized that Van's brain fired similar signals. Doug knew what the touch meant now, as he traced every time he felt it that his mind could even fathom. He knew it happened all the time, almost daily, but he finally recognized the pattern. 

It had happened once when he nearly died. Van's was the first familiar touch when he came back. He coughed and tensed and hurt, and Van touched the small of his back and asked if he was okay. Doug felt it was to let him know that he were there to help him, but he didn't think that now. 

More moments led him to another belief. Van's hand on his back was like a reflex. When Van got dressed for graduation. When they signed their first apartment lease. When the hockey score was tied with two minutes on the clock. Their first time--or, at some point, every time. When Doug practically pummeled him in a hug at the hospital after the car wreck that nearly took Van from him. At dinner with his family, or dinner with Van's dad. When they buried their cat, Jaks, after only two loving years. When they adopted Jaks despite the birth defect. When they got called names or people muttered negative comments around them. When one of them left for a few hours. When Doug cried at sappy rom-coms. When 9/11 happened. When they took their wedding pictures. When Van had nightmares. When they danced. 

Van's hand on his back was less for him and more for Van. To stabilize himself. To know that Doug was there. And real. And alive. To know that they were together. Van's little signal to himself that they are in it together. 

"Is it awkward, in the room?," Van asked. He was not yet comfortable with the thought of walking into a clinic where every person he saw would know why and when and what he was doing there. "They give you your privacy, for the most part. They have magazines if it helps. You can bring videos and stuff too, but no, uh, physical assistance, not that you would need it. You can only have stuff to look at, watch, or, uh, listen to." 

"What if.. What if I can't, in a place like that? With sterile walls and ticking clocks?" "I had trouble at first, so I made myself think of being somewhere else, but it does get easier. Everyone there wants the same result as you do, and that helps." "I'm freaking out." "I know. I'm here. I can probably be there with you, if you want." "I don't know." "I didn't know either, but, for me, I wouldn't want you in there because I didn't want us to remember being there as how we.. It just didn't feel right for me...and it felt less-right with every repeat visit, but the visits themselves got easier." "Stop talking." "Okay." "I love you." "I love you, too." "Okay." 

October 6th was paperwork, blood work, physical examination, and questions about the process. It had been quick for Doug after so many tries, but Van's first visit reminded Doug of his first visit. There was a major difference though. Doug had been nervous and embarrassed and all of that too, but he hadn't been scared. Van was scared. He was scared he would have problem too. He was scared he couldn't give Doug a baby. Doug had nonchalantly assumed that it would happen, no doubt, when he was first in this room. And Doug was scared now too, unlike Van's comforting and relaxed state--even joking about weird shit in the room. No one was joking now. 

Van asked a question they had known not to ask originally. Being gay in the early 2000s made them avoid these kinds of questions with the professionals. "If it doesn't work, is adoption a viable option?" "I'm sorry, but single men aren't allowed to adopt children who are wards of the state." "I'm not?--oh." Van would never get used to the pressure from society to keep love a secret. Usually he couldn't even remember that they weren't legally married. Before Doug, he felt like society pressured him into love, but with another man, it was the opposite, and he had not expected that, to be honest. Doug wanted to reassure Van and say, "it will work," but he didn't think it would. 

For Doug, this scenario didn't exist. He had always imagined being a dad, and now he was struggling with even identifying with it, for some reason. Technically, this baby would be Van's, and that technicality truly made him uncomfortable. He had thoughts he never wanted to have because of it. If Van left, Doug wouldn't have any rights to his child. If Van died, the child was never Doug's in the first place. Doug didn't want to think these things--he felt like he were hurting Van with them--but he couldn't prevent them. It would take a while for him to cope with the idea that he wouldn't be the biological dad--a thought that now, seventeen years later, seems so silly as they sign adoption papers. It was a different time though. This is an option now. They have equal weight in parenting the twins, in a way that they didn't legally have for a long time with Jeoff. 

October 8th came and went. Van did really well, but it took him much longer than it took Doug. Afterwards, he couldn't shake the bizarre feeling that doctors were handling his DNA in weird and bizarre ways--and everyone thought Doug and Van's relationship was so "unnatural." He wished every person who said that about his relationship would experience something truly unnatural, like paper trails, metal tools, plastic cups, and (ironically) sterile white walls...

October 20th came too, and they met up with their now-friend and surrogate, Mary. Mary wanted this to work for them--she felt like she had failed them. It wasn't easy to find a surrogate in their area willing to work with a homosexual couple, but Mary was more than willing. She loved the thought of helping them experience motherhood. She had two beautiful children of her own, and she was a single mom who could use the money, but it was less about that. She wanted to show her own children that they should help people when they can--even if it is difficult and if the world didn't want them too. Honestly, both Doug and Van hoped some of Mary's insight would be genetically passed to their baby--she was a beautiful person, inside and out. 

"Doug, this has never been your baby, and it's always been yours and Van's. Trust that you guys don't need legal support or physical evidence to know that. I'm shocked that you've even had the thought!" Van defended him. "It's difficult, Mary. There's paperwork this whole way through. Everyone knows what we're doing, and not many people want us to do it in the first place. It'd make a lot of people happy if we just quit trying." 

They liked that she always talked about Jeoff as if he were already happening, even when he wasn't. Her insistence on "this baby" is partially why they didn't quit, and they both knew it. Thank god for Marys, who birth miracle babies. 

This was their last unsure moment. This time, the test was positive. Baby Batman was real, as of October 20th. The 27th was the true positive test, but the 20th said yes--their first yes--and they threw themselves into it in ways everyone said they shouldn't. 

"This is not certain yet, but initial testing says late June or early July..." "OH MY GOD" "We still have to confirm on the 27th, in a week." "IT IS HAPPENING!" "Then, the first few months are risky, as sometimes the body rejects..." "WE DID IT!" "In a couple months, will need sonogram checks and some other tests to make sure..." "This is it, you're the world's greatest dad!" "You too, really, I love you." 

The waiting killed them, but they were both happy. Doug was glad that Van was so happy. Two weeks before he was due, Jeoff made his debut into the world, and Van snapped one of the last photos that completed one of the best presents Doug had ever received. He handed the camera to a nurse a couple hours later, who snapped a stunning photo of the little family, with Doug holding Jeoff and looking down him, and Van peering over his husband's shoulder and smiling softly. Every time Doug sees the picture, he remembers the feeling of Van's hand resting gently on his back. 

The photo book was a gift received with such emotion. The first picture was of the two coffee cups. The last, the one the nurse snapped at the hospital of the three of them. In between, every date was represented. So much of the book felt heavy and ugly. One picture, from the beginning of October, really felt hard. Van took a picture of his reflection in the mirror, as he held the little Batman onesie with one hand, over his heart, and looked down. However, another picture was of Doug's father, holding up a "World's Okayest Grandpa" onesie, and laughing. The picture next to it was Van's dad, proudly holding up a "World's Greatest Grandpa" onesie. Underneath, the new parents were clanking their morning coffee cups together... Doug laughed when he saw it. 

Doug loved being Jeoff's father, as did Van. Doug didn't even realize he wanted another baby until Jeoff was nearly twelve. Van wouldn't admit it, but he kinda wanted another kid too. He didn't want to enter that dark place again though, so he suggested they try fostering for adoption, but Doug insisted they try again, to avoid showing Jeoff how hard they'd have to try with adoption.

They fought for a while. The biggest fights they've ever had. Doug was ready to try again, but Van was scared. They even went to counseling over it, which helped so much. Together, they agreed to try again, for no more than 3 visits to "that fucking toxically sterile fertility clinic," and, if it didn't work, they would try adoption. 

The first visit was scheduled and they went, but before they went inside, Van kept Doug in the car for a minute. He reached in his bag and pulled out a magazine. Doug stared at the now-vintage relic of the porn industry for a moment and laughed--it was the magazine that Van found many years ago, when he first found out that Doug was gay. Doug gave him a confused look for a moment--why, of all days, did Van want /that/ with him? 

Van shocked him. "It should be you, babe." Doug started to protest, but Van wasn't having it. "I thought a lot about it. I'm not doing this again. Not this time, at least. You have to. You're the reason we're here, really." "Van, we already know." "We don't know shit." "It didn't." "It's been ages." "I can't." "I won't let it get bad, not like it was." "You're an asshole." Van laughed. "I'm not /actually/ taking this in there." Doug was actually blushing. "Oh, I know, but I found it and I couldn't just let it be. Why do you still have this?" "I swear, I didn't know I did." "Sure you didn't. I'll just keep it in the bag for you, you know, in case you're curious since you haven't looked at it in /weeks--ah! I mean years!/" Doug hit him so hard he bruised for years--err..weeks!


End file.
